by Catrien Ross
Overlooking Hachioji City, about two kilometers from Hachioji Station, is the 213-meter-high hill known as Otsukayama. Set in a clearing among the gnarled, old trees are the ruins of a small temple, Doryodo. The temple was shifted from Asakusa to this site in March 1873, by Watanabe Taijun, who enlisted the financial support of the area’s prosperous silk merchants. At one time, a “silk road” used to run from Hachioji to Yokohama, and along it was transported silk gathered from growers throughout the Kanto plain. Around the turn of the century Doryodo, although small, was a thriving temple backed by the active silk trade.
A ghost began to be seen here from 1965, and, even now, people say they can hear a woman’s weeping among the trees. This unhappy spirit is said to belong to Asai Toshi, who died horribly on September 10, 1963, at the age of eighty-two years. The old woman was found murdered inside the main temple building. Her throat was cut, and she had been stabbed through the heart. Her killer had then thrown a cushion over the dead body and made off with about three million yen that Asai Toshi was known to have been hoarding.
An illegitimate child, Asai Toshi was twenty-eight years old when she entered the Doryodo temple to assume the duties of caretaker. In this role she also told fortunes for the villagers. She also bore several children out of wedlock. Her first son was born in 1918, but he died shortly after birth. Three years later she had a daughter, who also died as a baby. On September 1, 1923, the same day as the Great Kanto Earthquake, Toshi gave birth to a second daughter whom rumor had it was fathered by the temple’s monk. The first person to find Toshi’s dead body was this daughter, Michie, who was forty years old at the time, and she placed her mother’s tomb in the tiny cemetery just behind the temple.
Surrounded by a simple bamboo fence, the cemetery is reached by five deep stone steps. To the right as one enters is a headstone for dogs and cats, and inside are eleven memorial stones, including one raised by Asai Toshi in memory of the temple’s founder, who died at the age of eighty-four on October 8, 1916. A marble, two-tiered stone topped by a globe of the same material marks the grave of Asai Toshi. Beside it is the waiting grave of her still living daughter, Michie. Her name is carved on the stone in red to indicate that she is still alive. When she dies, the engraving will be colored black. There is also a grave for the girl and boy who died shortly after birth, as well as a large stone for the entire Asai family. But peace seems to be difficult for the restless spirit of Asai Toshi, whose body in the world of the living met such a violent death. In 1983 the abandoned Doryodo temple was finally destroyed, and in 1990 Hachioji City designated it and the surrounding hillside as Otsukayama Park.
To possibly encounter yet another supernatural experience, head toward Mount Takao along the route of the old Koshu Kaido highway, now Route 20, one of the five major routes used during the Edo era. Lined with traditional Japanese-style houses, many of which are formerly inns for travelers going to and from Tokyo, this winding road seems to belong to another age. At Kobotoke was a crucial checkpoint set up by the Tokugawa government. From 1623, four guards were posted here, and people could travel to and fro between the hours of 6 A. M. and 6 P. M., provided they could show their authorized passes. Travel throughout Japan was severely restricted, and anyone caught circumventing the checkpoint was crucified, a situation which lasted until 1869.
At the entrance to what used to be Route 20, at Kobotoke Toge, there is a tunnel haunted by a ghost. Here, at night, a woman holding her baby appears suddenly, causing startled drivers to have accidents. One man saw the woman smile and disappear. Another person recalls in fright that the woman approached the car, looked closely in his face, and intoned, “wrong man.” People say the woman was hit by a car and left lying. Others believe she is searching for the man who abandoned her and her baby. Whatever the reason, she now materializes without warning and vanishes when the car skids or crashes.
Cries from the past can often be heard in Yamanashi Prefecture, which more recently gained notoriety as the main base of the AUM cult. At a place called Oiran Buchi, literally meaning “prostitute gorge,” people can sometimes hear the screams and cries of women. In the surrounding hilly area gold has been found since the Heian period, and during the Edo era there was a gold mine here, with brothels for the miners. The gold belonged to the wealthy Takeda family, but after the Takeda fortunes were ruined, it was decided to kill the fifty-five prostitutes working here to stop the rumor spreading about the gold available. The killers constructed a wide, wooden platform, suspended above the steep gorge, and invited the prostitutes to drink and dance there. At the height of the revelry, the ropes holding the platform were slashed, and the women plunged, screaming, to their deaths. Further downstream the villagers at Tabayama were able to fish the bodies out of the water, and they built a memorial to the victims there. Today, visitors, especially men, are cautioned to be wary of standing too close to the edge of Oiran Buchi, where the screams of angry spirits still echo.
Entrances to limbo can be found at a number of tunnels in and around Tokyo. The Sendagaya Tunnel, between Harajuku and Meiji Jingu, runs beneath the cemetery of the Senjuiin temple, and is a site of hauntings. Bad ki is said to flow from the cemetery and accumulate in the tunnel and drivers passing through have been startled by the face of a woman or a child in the windscreen. Another story tells of the woman who hails a cab, only to vanish when the taxi door opens. The Shirogane Tunnel is feared among taxi drivers as a place where Death incarnate, or Shinigami, awaits. Agonized faces have appeared on the tunnel’s pillars, and the number seen seems to be increasing. Along Route 134, between Kamakura and Zushi, is a spot considered to be one of the most mysterious in the entire Kanto plain, a place where energy is absorbed. Even locals avoid it. At a nearby tunnel, a human face will suddenly appear on the car’s rear window, or hand prints unexpectedly may be seen on the windscreen.
Modern hauntings take place not only in tunnels, but on bridges from which people have jumped to their death, as well as hotels, inns, and apartment buildings. Screams of the dying are said to have terrified security guards at the gutted ruins of the Hotel New Japan in Nagata-cho. Due to the owner’s carelessness, the hotel was destroyed by fire in 1982, killing thirty-three guests. The blackened structure was an eyesore, as well as a spot to stay clear of, and no buyer could be found for the property until July 1995. Nobody wanted to inherit a hotel haunted by spirits of human beings tragically burned to death.
At Inawashiro, in Fukushima Prefecture, there is a so-called “ghost pension,” an enormous derelict inn where several people say they have encountered various spirits of the dead. One Japanese psychic, Watanabe Shizue, in 1995 accompanied a television crew investigating the haunting. Claiming to have seen the ghost of a man in his sixties standing in the garden, and that of a white-haired woman in kimono at a second-floor window, she believes these are the spirits of a married couple. But the history of the pension is unclear, and nobody seems to know why it was abandoned and left to rot.
In neighboring Miyagi Prefecture is the Daigyoji temple, on Mount Tomiyama, in the town of Matsushima. It has been a center of worship for some 1,200 years, and many spirits are said to be wandering here; the temple bell rings by itself even when there is no wind or anyone around. The bell is most likely to ring between one and two in the morning. Also heard at night is the sound of water being taken up and poured from the famous well, Suigetsu, in the temple grounds. Again, there is nobody there, although the head monk, Inatomi Koun, tells the story of how one night he went to investigate the sound and saw, standing at the well, a young woman who then disappeared. In addition, he recalls that one evening, around eight o’clock, he watched as a fireball about thirty centimeters in diameter approached from the outer gate, and headed toward him. The fireball veered upward and flew into the main temple building.
Beginning in 1985, there was a problem of haunting at a large apartment building constructed approximately eight minutes or so away by foot from Kanazawa Hakkei Station. The mansion was reportedly b
uilt on the east ruins of the Jokoji temple, where there were more than forty tombs dating back to the Middle Ages. Numerous strange happenings have been reported in the area. A ghost wearing armor appeared in a certain room at night. A woman in another spot was visited at night by the dark figure of a large man beside her bed. For some reason she was unafraid, because she felt he was trying to ask her something, but when she tried to use her voice, she could not. Another time, the temple’s deputy head monk, Kurata Shoin, was walking with his four-year-old nephew on the hill behind the ruins, when the little boy suddenly became deathly afraid and grabbed his uncle. A man living in the neighborhood was walking his dog, when, she, too, became terrified near the ruins and ran away to safety. The monk felt that children and perhaps also animals, have special psychic power which enables them to sense the presence of spirits. Intriguingly enough, there was considerable controversy over the building’s construction, especially after several hundred human bones were dug up from the ruins. A number of people strongly in favor of the construction reportedly died suddenly of unknown causes, or met with serious accidents. But construction of the mansion was eventually completed in 1988, and a prayer service held, asking the spirits not to haunt the residents. So far they have honored this request.
Then there is the haunted prefectural museum in the Naka district of Yokohama. During the Sixties, several museum exhibition workers heard a groaning voice and saw a woman in kimono wandering at night on the third floor. In 1977 one worker heard a woman’s very loud screams, and later that year footsteps were heard. Previously, the site had housed a local bank, and on the day of the Great Kanto Earthquake, some two hundred residents escaped to shelter in the bank’s basement, along with 140 bank employees. Although the basement walls were thick, the people inside supposedly heard the terrible screams of people outside begging to be let in. At about half past four in the afternoon, all fell quiet, and the basement door was opened. Several hundred corpses lay strewn about.
During 1928–29 there was financial panic in Japan, with many people and businesses going bankrupt as the silk exporting industry collapsed. Local citizens reportedly asked the bank (Shokin Bank at that time) to bail them out, but the bank refused. As a result many families committed suicide. The building later became the Yokohama branch of the Bank of Tokyo, and then was remodeled as the museum. These sundry spirits are said to haunt the museum today.
Some say the Fukoku Seimei Building, in Uchisaiwaicho, is haunted by an unfortunate office worker who threw herself out of a high window to her death. Her body supposedly fell into the bushes, so that it was not discovered until several weeks later. Office ladies who now ride in the elevator have reported feeling a female presence standing behind or beside them. Often the elevator buttons light up by themselves, as if some unseen person had pushed the floor indicator.
Perhaps to reflect the more harried pace of modern society, ghost stories in Japan have grown shorter, as if people no longer have the time for long, elaborate tales. But the point is that the storytelling continues. Brushes with the paranormal remain a favorite media topic. Moreover, interest and research into supernatural phenomena other than hauntings is greater than ever. Mysticism and science seem to be merging in a sincere attempt to seek solutions to life’s unanswered speculations.
Throughout the rich tapestry of Japan’s history, the supernatural has been an enduring thread that is simply being reworked to meet the emerging needs of twentieth-century civilization. New worlds and possibilities are unfolding at a sometimes dizzying pace. The hidden life of the mind has assumed increasing importance. Awareness and appreciation of human potential is growing.
Like so many people seeking answers, Japanese are rediscovering that there is much more to humankind than meets the seeing eye. With the approach of the twenty-first century being loudly touted, it will be fascinating to watch what develops from now, given current research and discoveries. As the history of the supernatural in Japan shows, human beings are an intrinsic part of both the mystic and the mysterious. The essential unknown is woven into the daily fabric of our lives. For this reason alone, Japan’s search for the supernatural has continuing relevance for us all.
CHAPTER SIX
Scenes of Ghosts and Demons
As night deepens, a group of people gathers to play a game of daring. One hundred candles are lit and set behind blue paper. By the flickering light, each group member, one after the other, narrates a ghostly tale. As each story is recounted, another candle is extinguished. Bit by bit, the room grows darker and still darker. At last, the final candle is put out. Now there is only a silent blackness. Huddled together, the storytellers shiver. It is the moment to await what the darkness might bring...
Like people all over the world, Japanese love ghost stories, and the scarier the better. In creating just the right atmosphere blue is chosen because it is thought to be the color of hito dama, or the spirit as it leaves a newly dead body. Blue lights sometimes hover above graves, or are seen gliding out of houses. Use of the number one hundred, simply signifying numerous, dates back to one of the oldest beliefs about the supernatural in Japan, the hyakki yako, or “night parade of one hundred demons.” Popular since the Heian period, the belief in hyakki yako is based on the premise that night is the time when goblins and ghosts appear, ruling the hours of darkness before disappearing again at dawn. Out of this belief came the basis for the game hyaku monogatari, or “one hundred eerie tales,” with its form of storytelling well established by the middle of the seventeenth century.
These days in Japan, telling ghost stories is still popular as a summertime activity. The sweltering month of August is now characterized by crushed ice and haunting tales. This is, after all, the time of Obon, when dead relations are invited home for remembrance and feasting before they are sent back to the spirit world in paper lantern boats or astride miniature steeds fashioned out of eggplant. At shrines and local parks everywhere, even in central Tokyo, men, women, and children wearing yukata, or cotton summer kimono, dance to the drumbeat of Obon rhythms around raised platforms lit by lanterns. There have been many accounts of ghostly encounters taking place during these circular dances for the ancestors. It is an ideal season to dwell on the strange and the supernatural.
In Japanese thought, when a person dies, the spirit leaves this life, bound for an eternal world. Before reaching this destination, however, the spirit must spend some time in an in-between plane of existence, a limbo of vague uncertainties. It is while detained in this state that a spirit can become a restless or unhappy ghost set on haunting or otherwise disrupting those with whom it still feels a strong connection. Thus, powerful emotions of hatred, revenge, sorrow, or jealousy can create a ghost, drawing a spirit back into this world to wreak its havoc. Such ghosts continue to haunt the earth until someone or something releases them back to limbo to resume their journey to eternity.
During Japan’s Edo era many such ghosts were female. Although ghosts and ghost stories had been part of Japanese culture for centuries, it was in the Edo era that strong interest in the supernatural was revived. This may have been because this long era in Japanese history was one of social upheaval in which creation of class structures imposed severe restrictions on common people. Perhaps the reemergence of a panoply of supernatural phenomena, including ghosts, demons, and changeling animals reflected the unrest within society. Or perhaps it was simply an age that craved the thrilling and the mysterious. Especially exciting was the idea of a wrathful female ghost returning to exact vengeance for former mistreatment.
Edo era artists typically rendered the female ghost as a fragile form with long, flowing hair and beckoning hands. Dressed in pale or white clothing, the body below the waist tapered into nothingness. Japanese people today still imagine ghosts as lacking feet, and having arms that are bent upward at the elbow, with hands hanging pathetically down from the wrists. In tales from this period, the extent of suffering a person experienced while alive directly influenced the actions of the s
pirit after death: a wronged woman could return as a particularly nasty ghost. A range of ghostly female emotions is showcased in the Ugetsu Monogatari (Tales of Moonlight and Rain), compiled by the writer Ueda Akinari (1734–1809).
Nor was the ghostly world populated only by females. Male ghosts, too, had their place, and indeed, were among the most popular characters in kabuki theater, which allowed for superb dramatic effects when a ghost came on stage. Kabuki convention dictated that the ghost’s face be pale blue, with eyebrows brushed in silver and lips smudged blue or black. As befitted a wandering spirit, the hair was disheveled, hanging loose around the shoulders. The popular art of ukiyo-e, another Edo-era creation, also depicted ghostly beings, with one of the best-known being Utagawa’s print of the ghost of Sakura Sogoro, the hero of the kabuki play, Sakura Giminden (Legend of Sakura, a Man of Justice). Often grisly in their details, kabuki ghost plays like this nonetheless were meant to convey the sense that evil inevitably gets its comeuppance. There was eventual balm for even the most grotesque suffering and bloody violence, and justice would finally prevail.
In addition to ghosts there are yokai, or obake (monsters). Yokai stories are found everywhere in Japan, with different regions having their own versions of the same story line. Yokai do not arise spontaneously, but are shapes reflected in the mirror of the deepest psyche. They thus show all the bad deeds of which human beings are capable of doing. They are the dark side of our nature, manifestations of our worst imaginings and fears. Forever lurking in the deepest recesses of our minds, yokai are always seeking the chance to surface. Extraordinary shape-shifters, they can change their form into anything they want, anytime. The childhood bogeyman, the monster of the dark, the dreadful shape that looms in the corner, all these are ages-old reminders of our murky past and the part of ourselves we would prefer not to face. At the appropriate time and place, yokai appear once more, terrifying in intensity and malevolent will. Alongside a lonely rice field. In the forest at night. Out of the whirling snow.